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<p>The Department for Work and Pension’s publication <em>Improving lives: Helping
Workless Families,</em> presented evidence on the root causes of disadvantage and
their impact on the outcomes for children. This included nine national indicators
to track progress in tackling the disadvantages that affect families’ and children’s
lives and replace all the former <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/social-justice-outcomes-framework"
target="_blank">social justice outcomes framework</a> indicators. A copy of this framework
has been attached.</p><p> </p><p>One of the new indicators measures parental conflict
to reflect evidence that inter-parental relationship quality is of fundamental importance
to children’s outcomes, including their mental health, wellbeing and future employment
prospects. On the basis of this evidence and after consulting with academics, a new
indicator has been developed. This measures quality of the inter-parental relationship
among coupled and separated parents as the proportion of children in couple-parent
families experiencing relationship distress. Where parents are separated, research
suggests that positive involvement from both parents in the child’s life can help
address the potential negative impacts of parental separation therefore as a proxy
for the quality of relationship between separated parents the proportion of children
in separated families who see their non-resident parents regularly is also being measured.</p><p>
</p><p>The Analysis and Research Pack published alongside <em>Improving Lives</em>,
presents an update of the proportion of children in couple-parent families living
with parents who report relationship distress, broken down by the age of the child.
The measure is not broken down by income.</p>
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